GMAT Reading Comprehension - The Two Passages Discuss Recent Scientific Research on Music

Reading Passage Question

The two passages discuss recent scientific research on music. They are adapted from two different papers presented at a scholarly conference.

Passage A

Did music and human language originate separately or together? Both systems use intonation and rhythm to communicate emotions. Both can be produced vocally or with tools, and people can produce (5) both music and language silently to themselves. Brain imaging studies suggest that music and language are part of one large, vastly complicated, neurological system for processing sound. In fact, fewer differences than similarities exist between the (10) neurological processing of the two. One could think of the two activities as different radio programs that can be broadcast over the same hardware. One noteworthy difference, though, is that, generally speaking, people are better at language than music. In music, anyone (15) can listen easily enough, but most people do not perform well, and in many cultures composition is left to specialists. In language, by contrast, nearly everyone actively performs and composes. Given their shared neurological basis, it appears (20) that music and language evolved together as brain size increased over the course of hominid evolution. But the primacy of language over music that we can observe today suggests that language, not music, was the primary function natural selection operated on. (25) Music, it would seem, had little adaptive value of its own, and most likely developed on the coattails of language.

Passage B

Darwin claimed that since “neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are (30) faculties of the least [practical] use to man...they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed.” I suggest that the enjoyment of and the capacity to produce musical notes are faculties of indispensable use to mothers and their infants and

(35) that it is in the emotional bonds created by the interaction of mother and child that we can discover the evolutionary origins of human music. Even excluding lullabies, which parents sing to infants, human mothers and infants under six months (40) of age engage in ritualized, sequential behaviors, involving vocal, facial, and bodily interactions. Using face-to-face mother-infant interactions filmed at 24 frames per second, researchers have shown that mothers and infants jointly construct mutually (45) improvised interactions in which each partner tracks the actions of the other. Such episodes last from one-half second to three seconds and are composed of musical elements—variations in pitch, rhythm, timbre,

volume, and tempo. (50) What evolutionary advantage would such behavior have? In the course of hominid evolution, brain size increased rapidly. Contemporaneously, the increase in bipedality caused the birth canal to narrow. This resulted in hominid infants being born ever-more (55) prematurely, leaving them much more helpless at birth. This helplessness necessitated longer, better maternal care. Under such conditions, the emotional bonds created in the premusical mother-infant interactions we observe in Homo sapiens today—behavior whose (60) neurological basis essentially constitutes the capacity to make and enjoy music—would have conferred considerable evolutionary advantage.

“The two passages discuss recent scientific research on music.”- is a comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 6 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

1. Both passages were written primarily in order to answer which one of the following questions?

(A) What evolutionary advantage did larger brain size confer on early hominids?
(B) Why do human mothers and infants engage in bonding behavior that is composed of musical elements?
(C) What are the evolutionary origins of the human ability to make music?
(D) Do the human abilities to make music and to use language depend on the same neurological systems?
(E) Why are most people more adept at using language than they are at making music?

2. Each of the two passages mentions the relation of music to

(A) bonding between humans
(B) human emotion
(C) neurological research
(D) the increasing helplessness of hominid infants
(E) the use of tools to produce sounds

3. It can be inferred that the authors of the two passages would be most likely to disagree over whether

(A) the increase in hominid brain size necessitated earlier births
(B) fewer differences than similarities exist between the neurological processing of music and human language
(C) brain size increased rapidly over the course of human evolution
(D) the capacity to produce music has great adaptive value to humans
(E) mother-infant bonding involves temporally patterned vocal interactions

4. The authors would be most likely to agree on the answer to which one of the following questions regarding musical capacity in humans?

(A) Does it manifest itself in some form in early infancy?
(B) Does it affect the strength of mother-infant bonds?
(C) Is it at least partly a result of evolutionary increases in brain size?
(D) Did its evolution spur the development of new neurological systems?
(E) Why does it vary so greatly among different individuals?

5. Which one of the following principles underlies the arguments in both passages?

(A) Investigations of the evolutionary origins of human behaviors must take into account the behavior of nonhuman animals.
(B) All human capacities can be explained in terms of the evolutionary advantages they offer.
(C) The fact that a single neurological system underlies two different capacities is evidence that those capacities evolved concurrently.
(D) The discovery of the neurological basis of a human behavior constitutes the discovery of the essence of that behavior.
(E) The behavior of modern-day humans can provide legitimate evidence concerning the evolutionary origins of human abilities.

6. Which one of the following most accurately characterizes a relationship between the two passages?

(A) Passage A and passage B use different evidence to draw divergent conclusions.
(B) Passage A poses the question that passage B attempts to answer.
(C) Passage A proposes a hypothesis that passage B attempts to substantiate with new evidence.
(D) Passage A expresses a stronger commitment to its hypothesis than does passage B.
(E) Passage A and passage B use different evidence to support the same conclusion.

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